


say you'll remember (oh baby)

by cookiemonsta



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oneshot, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:58:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3985843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookiemonsta/pseuds/cookiemonsta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve/Danny coda to 2.20: <i>when you walked out that door, a piece of me died</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	say you'll remember (oh baby)

Steve's absence aches in all the ways Danny knew it would; at times leaving him torn between two warring absolutes — breathless with fury because _how could he leave without so much as a word_ — or otherwise crippled with a longing so real and sharp that it's almost as if Danny's missing a vital organ; as if he can feel its loss with every breath that stutters in and out of his lungs.

Underlining it all is a dull pain that Danny refuses to classify, something that's threaded so deeply through the skin of him that it's hard to know where to assign the blame. He's worried for Steve, that much has always been true, but the ache he feels is unwavering and so centred around Steve (he's gone, he left, _he left_ ) that Danny knows he won't breathe easy until the team is whole once more.

 _You're heartbroken_ , Kono will tell him, and Danny will choke on the sob that rises in his throat when he meets her eyes; there's no hiding from her, she knows him too well.

Chin is strong and silent by his side, offering wordless support by being as good a stand-in as he can manage; and they don't talk about how wrong it feels to be a team of three instead of four, or about how strange Danny feels behind the wheel of his own car. 

The letter, scrunched up and straightened out countless times, lives in Danny's desk drawer underneath an old school photo of Grace. He's memorised each word spelled out in Steve's cramped writing because that's all he's been given to hold on to.

_Danno, I'm going to need you to hold down the fort for a while. I'll be in touch. Mahalo._

In quiet moments Danny will hold the letter in his hands, smoothing the pads of his fingers over Steve's words in a wretched kind of caress. Inevitably, his fingertips always linger over the very last word Steve wrote — _Mahalo_ — and it isn't Danny's imagination that those six letters are pressed into the paper with more force than the rest. Danny sometimes fools himself into thinking that maybe Steve wanted to say something else instead ( _love you, miss you, wait for me, can't bear to do this to you_ ) but as always Steve is terse and to the point; and able to break Danny's heart in ways no-one else ever could.

So Danny holds down the fort, just like Steve asked him to; and it's as simple as that, until it isn't anymore.

After a week with no contact from Steve, Danny feels the threads of his barely-there control begin to fray. That night he leaves countless messages on Steve's phone, each one increasing in volume and cuss words with every drink he takes in between. His last message, a broken and hoarse _fuck you, Steve — just... fuck you_ hangs uncomfortably in the silence that follows after he ends the call; the words taste bitter in his mouth and the thrum of alcohol in his blood isn't enough to blunt the knife that twists in his gut. Steve doesn't want to be found, and until that changes, all Danny can do is wait.

That night he gets a call at four in the morning. The trill of his cell sounds foreign in the silence, but even as he fumbles for the handset his heart's already pumping harder because finally, _finally_.

“Danny, _Danny_ , open the door,” Steve's saying, and his voice is shredded to hell but Danny hangs on every word. It takes a second before Danny's brain can catch up, he's already up and padding towards the door; barefoot and too drunk to think better of it.

Later Danny will blame it on the alcohol, but in the moment it just feels right.

Steve expects Danny to open the door, but he isn't expecting the blow, and when Danny's fist collides with his cheek it sends him reeling. Steve hisses in a breath at the pain, and Danny has a split second to feel smug before he's soothing the red mark with his hands and mashing his mouth against Steve's. It's awful and fucked up and so goddamned perfect that Danny almost hates himself for giving in this easily.

But then Steve drops whatever bag he was carrying and gets both hands in Danny's hair, angling Danny's mouth where he wants it and making broken noises that make the air thicken and constrict in Danny's lungs. 

Danny ends the kiss, pulling away with a wet noise and he can't bear the way Steve _keens_ at the loss, lips seeking his again.

“Hate you,” Danny says to Steve, and it comes out sounding like the complete opposite, his voice fragile like broken glass. “You can't do this to me, okay?” There are tears on his cheeks, Danny feels Steve swipe them away with his thumbs, shaky and uncertain, before Steve speaks.

“I won't, Danny. Never again, I — _please_ — ”

Danny silences him with a kiss, hard and bruising. They collide once more, and all Danny can think to do is mark Steve as permanently as Steve has marked him; to make Steve ache in all the same places Danny's ached over the last two weeks. 

They spend the night in Danny's bed and it's not enough to dull the ache, but it's a start.

_fin._


End file.
